Tomorrow’s Media Leaders Are in Mumbai Today

I am roaming the streets of Mumbai, India, with 19 American students. They have been here 2 days, on a Study Abroad program through my University, titled Mass Media in Modern India, which I am directing.
Of course, for a number of them, this is their first trip outside the United States of America. Of course, several of them are overwhelmed. “A delirious, sensory overload,” is how one students described her first 48 hours in the world’s oldest democracy.
Why have I brought them here? These students, I believe, will be the future leaders and practitioners of media industries. What could be better than for them to learn from some of the best and brightest of Indian media professionals? What could make better sense than for them to stand in this huge city, notebooks in hand, and stumble over the highs and lows of the human condition?
On their first morning here, they heard from Mumbai journalist Jerry Pinto. I asked Jerry to give them ideas for “simple stories, simple projects to begin with.” “There are none,” Jerry replied, and my students realized how every question they’d ask in India would lead them to more and more and more questions until they stand at the very precipice of history in this 5000-year-old nation.
Today, the students went on a tour of the city. Among other things, they visited Gandhi’s Mumbai home, Mani Bhavan. Simple, stark, secluded. Almost no-one there. What sense are they making of this? I will let them think it over.
Tomorrow, they will visit a shooting at MTV India.
Do you see what they’re up against?
While they navigate the streets of this city, aware of themselves as Americans, they also have to read the two diverse headlines in the nation they call home and the nation that will be their home for the next 3 weeks. This, and this.
They will be writing a daily blog, which I will post here over the next 3 weeks. Read it, comment, and watch them find a new way to communicate, a new way to be in this mass-mediated world.